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Countryfile and Tree-Planting  

3/4/2017

1 Comment

 
PictureFelled trees: we had asked for protection orders
Are enough trees being planted in Britain, asks Countryfile on 2 April 2017? Not in England. What’s the picture in Kendal, a town on the borders of the Lake District National Park where you’d think ecology and biodiversity matter?  
Next morning, an email from  South Lakeland District Council states  the trees felled at Ghyll Brow were all under protection orders. We thought so, because we had asked for their protection.  Is the force of law in what you write , or what  you meant to write? None of the trees do not have protection orders. (Oops, sorry, got that wrong.) None of them have tree- protection orders. (Where did  grammar go?)


 It's the illusion of democracy. We gather evidence, ask questions, follow the process- and are  utterly ignored.  
Who authorised the felling of trees at Ghyll Brow? And why?  We have asked this in writing and have received a reply that does not address our question.  For some years several of us have been campaigning for tree-protection orders, a reasoned campaign with a weight of environmental evidence behind us. We made our applications with due process so why were tree-protection orders not in place?
We now ask again, for Belmont. This afternoon I walked into Kendal to the sounds of tree-felling. Beside garages and car parking, two mature trees were newly felled. An ecologist whose home overlooks the site  was told the reason was ivy. That answer satisfies neither  ecologist  nor naturalist, neither of us. It is ignorant. No advance- notice had been posted, we looked and found none. Several other people  appeared and we were all angry.  Why had these trees been felled?  And who had authorised this? We stood chatting and looking down on  cross-sections of healthy trees.
We talked of Kendal Market Place, being ‘upgraded and modernised thanks to Geoff Cook and the Lib Dem team’ says their latest publication.   Upgraded by felling birch trees which many of us love, for themselves and because they're a roost for pied wagtails. ( see letter in The Westmorland Gazette.)   'Modernising' Kendal would seem to mean stripping out nature. 
Did no one on the Council see the grand finale  of David Attenborough’s Planet Earth 11? If we fail to heed his message we'll all suffer for it.  Air pollution is a hot topic and tree-planting in urban spaces goes some way to mitigate the effect. 
The suggestion from Belmont neighbours was that these mature trees were felled to make more parking spaces for cars.
We have asked, repeatedly, that before any building work begins at Ghyll Brow pedestrian safety is ensured on this narrow country road and a pavement is in place.  No response on this one either.  It's a vital health and safety provision.

1 Comment
Lucy Gibson
4/4/2017 06:34:51 pm

Thanks for your important blog comments Jan. It was good to meet you yesterday and to share our concerns and disappointment about the felling of the trees at the end of Belmont, in addition to others in the locality. I am becoming increasingly concerned by the removal of supposedly diseased/stressed mature trees from the area/Kendal and the impacts (in the short and long-term, and cumulatively) that this will have on wildlife and also on residents' well-being and happiness. Mature trees are of such intrinsic value to the area. They create distinctive character as well as being of vital importance in providing habitats for wildlife, including birds, bats and invertebrates within our built-up environments. They also create links with nature that are sadly becoming increasingly rare in urban environments. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, my family's lives here will be somewhat poorer due to the trees' removal; we used to love looking out of our windows/garden at the many birds that gathered in them.
Not to mention the potential destruction of bird nesting and bat roosting habitat by the removal of such trees; the trees surgeons told me that there were no nests in the trees removed yesterday, but were works so urgent that they needed to be felled in the bird nesting season? And what about bat roosts? There appeared to be no notice provided of the tree works or public information made available, despite them being located in a Conservation Area and in a relatively dense residential area.

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    Jan Wiltshire is a nature writer living in Cumbria. She also explores islands and coast and the wildlife experience. (See Home and My Books.)

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